Page:Ethical Studies (reprint 1911).djvu/104

 directly opposed to popular morality. If, by being changed into pigs, we secured an absolute certainty of a greater amount of pleasure with a less amount of pain, we (I speak for the ordinary person) should decline the change, either for ourselves or the race, and should think it our duty to do so. But, if we believe that the greatest amount of pleasure is the end, it would be our duty to strive after, and accept such a change. And some such choice is not a mere theoretical possibility. Unless Fourier be much belied, his scheme of ‘phalansteries’ was a practical proposal to seek for pleasure as the end, and all else as means. The ordinary moral man refuses to discuss such a proposal. He repudiates the end, and the means with it. But the ‘greatest amount of pleasure’ doctrine must accept the end, and calmly discuss the means; and this is not the moral point of view. It is surely imaginable (I do not say it is likely), that we might have to say to a large and immoral majority, ‘If I wanted to make you happy, which I do not, I should do so by pampering your vices, which I will not.’ (Stephen, Liberty, p. 287.)

So much for the morality of the theory. Let us now consider its practicability and consistency. The end, as the pleasure of all, is, like my pleasure, not something which I can apprehend and carry out in my life. It is not a system, not a concrete whole. There are no means included in it: there are none which, in themselves, belong to the end. Wanting to know what I am to do, ‘Increase the pleasure of all’ gives me, by itself, no answer. ‘But there is no need that it should,’ will be the reply. The experience of mankind has discovered the means which tend to increase pleasure; these are laid down in the moral Almanack (Mill, p. 36), and they may fairly be considered as included in the end.

Here I think that Hedonism does not see a most serious difficulty. It is the old question, What is the nature of the authority of the Almanack, and are its rules laws? If they are laws, on what do they rest? If they are not, are there any other moral laws; and without laws can you have morality? Let me explain the objection. You can not, I object to the Hedonist, make these laws part of the end, and identify them therewith; for the end was clearly laid down as pleasurable feeling, and there is no essential connection between that end and the laws